political-scandals

"1MDB is not a wealth fund as it is touted to be. Except for the RM1 million contributed by the government, the rest of the RM42 billion is borrowed money. Borrowed money cannot be regarded, or classified, as wealth. It is a liability that imposes on 1MDB, or in case of its failure, the government has to repay the interest and the principal. The sum is so huge that if the government cannot pay them (the financiers) it could be bankrupted. This has happened to Greece. The possibility of this happening imposes a heavy responsibility on the management of 1MDB and its oversight by the government. And very quickly, it became clear that the executives and board of 1MDB did not take their responsibilities seriously."

"1MDB is not a perception or slander but it is indeed a case that has been proven in the United States. What is there to hide? Just admit it."

"What cheek and and insolence for former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak to insist that I admit that he had received an RM2.6 billion donation from a Saudi prince, when the best answer to his pathetic effort at documentary exoneration on Monday was made by the Wall Street Journal’s award-winning journalists. Tom Wright and Bradley Hope, whose exposés on the 1MDB scandal in their book Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World will hit the Malaysian bookstores next week. The pair took Najib to task for his blog post on Monday regarding how he received donations from the Saudi royal family."

"Some have argued that the 1MDB scandal would have no impact on the election. I beg to differ. Yes, 1MDB alone probably won’t swing votes, but the fact that the voters will walk into the polling booth knowing that the prime minister had taken money into his own personal bank account is an important electoral factor. Otherwise, Najib’s rating would have gone back to the 60 percent level of pre-2015, and not hovering in the 30s, a recipe for disaster for Umno-BN. Whether they like it or not, both Najib and his wife Rosmah Mansor are hated figures among the electorate. On the social media and political gossip circles, they are constantly ridiculed by parodies, not by the opposition but by the spontaneous public."

"Investors today have a choice. They have vast choice. And Malaysia, even with everything else being equal, has a challenge, because we are a small economy, and we have strength but we also have this weakness that we are relatively small. I've always maintained Malaysia has to work harder, much harder than the bigger markets. And a situation like that… when investors see something like the 1MDB fiasco, and don't understand it, they are left to question whether Malaysia condones the weak governance practices that were evident, and [they] have questions about the big institutions. It makes it difficult for us to promote Malaysia"

"I don't want to attack Andreotti, for heaven's sake, but how can we forget that he handed the State over to P2 by appointing Grassini, Santovito and Pelosi as heads of the secret services in 1978? All of them were members of P2. The same three who later investigated the Moro crime."

"[On P2] Three years later it became quite clear that that power group saw my presence at Eni as an insurmountable obstacle to the continuation of the business system that existed before my appointment in 1992, and was trying in every way possible to eliminate me."

"Since the landing of the Allies in Sicily, and the decision to involve the Mafia to facilitate it, a 'quiet life' relationship has been established with this criminal organisation, which has characterised decades of our history. It was a necessarily occult agreement. And even more occult and opaque has necessarily been its perpetuation. What could it have produced if not blackmail? The blackmail of the criminal powers over politics. Another example of that way of governing the country by compromise, and then by blackmail, is the 'Cirillo case'. Remember? A part of the DC came to an agreement with Raffaele Cutolo's Camorra to free councillor Ciro Cirillo, granting, in exchange, the criminality access to the public resources of the post-seismic reconstruction. And I could go on: Iri's slush funds; the P2..."

"Would Giulio Andreotti have been the true "master" of the P2 Lodge? For heaven's sake... I had the P2, Cossiga the Gladio and Andreotti the Ring."

"With P2 we had Italy in our hands. Then there was the Army, Financial Police, Police: they were clearly commanded by all people from the P2 Masonic lodge. [...] We never wanted to attack and we couldn't attack, but we were a sentinel to prevent the Communist Party from emerging."

"Being a piduist is not a title of demerit."

"P2 gathered the best men in the country, and signing up was not a mistake but an accident through no fault of our own."

"When I received my membership card it said I was an apprentice bricklayer and I, who was a great home builder at the time, couldn't help but have a good laugh."

"Licio Gelli: In this country there is the only charismatic figure who can truly lead it: Silvio Berlusconi."

"Gomez: But in the meantime we know how these things go: he will end up being acquitted."

"The P2 also wanted Moro's death because he opened the door to the PCI. And Cossiga was powerless."

"[On the judicial investigations that led to his removal] I was more upset about the end of another investigation, the one into IRI's slush funds. In the P2 case it was the first time, and I thought it was an accident that could happen. But the next time I was on the verge of resigning."

"The investigations into the Freemasons and the relationship between the lodges and the mafia must lead to the political responsibility of the Honourable Mrs Anselmi and her commission on P2. What emerged was already known at the time, but Mrs Anselmi, on behalf of the party system, did not want to clarify the situation regarding the Freemasons."

"No one can deny that P2 is a criminal organisation."

"Being a member of the P2 meant having participated in an organisation, a secret sect, plotting against the State, and this was ratified by Parliament. And I share this opinion that was formed after the investigation by the Anselmi Commission."

"[About the Plan of "Democratic" Rebirth, as in the picture] My Plan of rebirth? I see that twenty years later this Bicamerale [the Massimo D'Alema Bicamerale] is copying it piece by piece, with the Boato draft. Better late than never. They should at least give me the copyright..."

"Since fifteen years a group of people has been using public functions to solve their own problems of justice; Go and reread the proposals of P2, go and reread all those proposals, they are exactly those of a justice system subservient to power, they are exactly those of an anti-democratic state where a caste rules over a people who are no longer citizens but subjects."

"The list of P2 affiliates includes, they say, 953 names, corresponding to the highest ranks of politics, the judiciary, the armed forces, bureaucracy, industry and finance. All ‘brothers’. It's proof that, in this country, woe betide only children."

"It is still not completely clear how ramified this organisation is [ Fethullah Gülen ] which resembles your P2 lodge, a criminal organisation that calls itself religious."

"The instigators have never sat in the dock. During the years of massacres we realised that within the State there is an Anti-State: high PUDUIST officers who acted to divert the course of justice, also using Gladio or the Anello, implicated in the most murky events of our history. Evidence destroyed, witnesses systematically eliminated. A misdirection of enquiries that continues today."

"The Palace had its occult and transversal implications. P2 teaches. P2 has run transversally through all the institutions of the State. It's a fact, I'm not the one saying it, and I'm not accusing anyone because I'm not in a position to do so. [...] So the transversality of my alleged attitude within the Red Brigades is specious, so I don't feel in the least bit affected."

"I will RJD Party with my son, just like Congress Party is being run by Rahul - Sonia."

"This is not the last judgment. High Court and Supreme Court are there."

"Lalu is not guilty in people's court."

"Openly, on the floor of Parliament, (I said) he (Rajiv Gandhi) didn’t get the Bofors money, (Ottavio) Quattrocchi (Sonia’s close friend) got it, and these were proved quite later, too late."

"The Government led by Rajiv Gandhi had no opinion but to conduct an investigation, even if it meant an unobtrusive "operation whitewash"."

"Bofors scandal is an example of a genuine case sabotaged by a Government run by a political party which has a lot to hide."

"It is really more than I can stand – the horror, day after day at the court and in the streets. It is not only fear, it is a wish not to let them get me. I would rather get myself. I do hope I have not let people down too much"

"My life has been cursed by sex I didn't particularly want. Jack Profumo was all over me and there wasn’t much I could do about it. He was a much older man, not someone I wanted to be with, it just happened. Jack had power too and that was part of it for me. Jack Profumo was seriously out of line in his behaviour with me. I was young but he was the one who didn’t know any better. He’d been taught that he could take anything he wanted."

"There has been no impropriety between myself and Miss Keeler"